Food Fight

Hungry students were recently met with the sizzling of grilled cheese and the aroma of freshly baked pizza – caprese sweet Italian sausage pizza and roasted strawberry, brie and chocolate grilled cheese, to be exact – when they arrived at Englar Dining Hall for dinner March 5.

Glar, as students and faculty fondly know it, was the site of a friendly-face off between McDaniel’s own head chef Jamie Nutter and rivals Joseph Phillips of University of Maryland Hillel, College Park and Brian Boots of Trinity College in Washington, D.C.

Tasked with reinventing student favorites, the three chefs showed off their culinary prowess, all for a good time and a chance to win some hard-earned bragging rights. Sodexo, the college’s food services manager, hosted the event, called Chef’s Fare.

“It’s all for the students. We get to put on an exhibition for them,” said Nutter, whose take on cheese ravioli won him the second highest number of student votes – Phillips’ pizza trio and sundae bar station was crowned the winner.

Sophomore Natarsha Towner hopes Nutter’s fried cheese ravioli with bruschetta topping becomes a regular on the menu. That’s entirely possible, as many dishes from past Chef’s Fare events have later reappeared in the Glar service stations, said Rita Webster, general manager at Sodexo, McDaniel College.

For junior Erin Giles, nights like this one encourage her to try new food.

Diving into her flambéed bananas over vanilla ice cream, Giles summed up the night in one word: “Delicious.”